My fencing to keep rabbits from devouring my green bean plants is not working as effectively as in prior years.
The system I use forms a chicken wire cage 3 feet tall and about 2 1/2 feet (30 inches) in diameter of about linear 8 feet from a roll of this fencing. I cut three sticks selected from tree prunings, cutting them to about 6 feet long and cutting the ground ends on a bias to press into the soil. I tie these sticks with cloth rag material to form a tripod, and I use rags to tie the cage about 3 inches up from the bottom ends of the sticks.
I till the soil, I place this assembly to mark where the sticks go and deepen the holes with a crowbar. I plant 9 bean seeds of Kentucky Wonder pole bean, three around each hole, one inch deep, to be inside the cage, and then press the cage into the marked holes, pressing it down hard enough to get the bottom of the chicken wire about one inch into the soil.
The first picture shows two of my cages, and close inspection shows that the tops of some of the bean plants are gone. The second picture shows unmolested bean plants in a cage planted in a fenced part of my garden–essentially belt and suspenders. The reason I put this one cage inside the fence is I ran out of other spaces where I got enough sun given the trees on my back yard. The reason I don’t dispense with the cages and plant beans inside my fenced garden is that one year I lost all my bush beans when a young rabbit tunneled into my fenced garden, although the pole beans somehow pulled through.
What I think is happening is that the growing bean leaves poke out through the chicken wire, the rabbit comes up to start eating, and then it slurps up much of the top of that bean like a kid eating a strand of cooked spaghetti.
I know that protecting vegetables against mammalian pests is one of the ancient battles in gardening and the subject of the ongoing struggle between Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. My question is, anyone else experience rabbits figuring out how to eat bean plants behind a wire cage they haven’t breached?
How do I know this isn’t white tail deer? Well, I have those too as evidenced by cloven hoof prints, but I have observed rabbits coming up to my bean cages and pressing their noses against them.
